It’s amazing how many of the commands and how many details of the Realms I instantly recalled.  It didn’t take too long to track down Arca who has been keeping my chars alive for years.  Only a few autodeleted, like Raspberry the Paladin and Darhma the Thief (Darmha and Tharius were mudmarried back when she was Julie’s thief).  A big thanks to Raveyn and Kyrna of the Order of Arete for helping with that.

Unsurprisingly in the years that Turlough held the characters and the years since that Arca has held them, a lot of the equipment has been shuffled around, used elsewhere, traded, sold or whatever.  In all fairness, if I held someone’s characters for a decade I’d think of them as mine and do pretty well what I pleased too.  Notwithstanding, by shuffling things around I’ve got several very usable characters ready to use.

So the big question was do I rejoin the Order of Dragonslayer?  I felt at home there, once upon a time, and since I still had Claws of the Wyrm on my hands I thought it was a no brainer to go ahead and rejoin.  I remember Sophie and Joe from Guild of Druid runs to Danbala (and elsewhere) and think well of them, I’ve had no problems with either of them and I haven’t been around if there have been controversies.

Something I realize in coming back to the game is that I’m looking for a social environment.  I joined and left Diablo 3 clans for that reason, I can play well enough alone but I am looking for some comradeship.  When it comes to Realms I enjoy exploring and running.  It’s ok to spend 3 hours and only come home with a green line of text because that’s the game.  Not really all that different than Diablo farming in that regard, you’re building up characters and using them to take you further into the game.

In the first few days back I was very excited to be back and active.  I wanted to jump back into running and to help rebuild Dragonslayer.  Hell if I had my way I’d also build a Facebook app out of the Flash MUD client on the Realms main page and herald a new flow of players into the Realms.  I got re-inducted, asked for and got wiki access and proceeded to straighten out some of my characters.

It’s times like this that I get myself into trouble.  I take on too much, get disappointed when I don’t get big results, give up and move on.  I’ve learned a few things along the way and I have to take a breath and acknowledge some things to myself; the current situation is not my fault and no one expects me to fix it, I contribute best when I am engaged and that it’s okay to just want to participate and set my own goals in the game.

While getting organized I chummed with Raveyn and Arca a fair amount, naturally.  I came to acknowledge that in the time I was online there were always a number of active Arete around who have been pretty friendly thus far.  Simultaneously with the exception of 2 old friends, I have seen very few Dragonslayers online.  Lounging at the Summit was a frequent activity, back in the day, but there were always people coming or going.

When I was asked if I’d like to apply to Arete I really had a moral crisis.  I want to help Dragonslayer rebuild, the order was good to me and I think it’d be very satisfying to see it active but I’ve come to question whether I am at a point where I’m able to help.  Yes, I can be around and be active but with my current commitments to family, school and work I don’t think I should make any serious time commitments.  Next, I need to relearn the runs and learn to play at competitive level like I did in the past.  That means I need mentors to learn from or else it will be a very long process.  As much as it stinks, I don’t see a mentor like that in DS for me.  Yes, some of the players who are playing in DS could fill that role, but if we’re not on at the same time or miss each other, then it doesn’t work out.

I understand there’s been some housecleaning of old, inactive characters (ha, like me!) but more than that, there seems to have been an exodus a little while ago to Arete.  I have heard bits and pieces about this and I believe there are hurt feelings among those directly involved, so all I’ll say here is that my decision to leave Dragonslayer and join Arete was purely based on my own situation and not a reflection of what has gone on over the last few months (especially).  If I could have kept a foot in both orders I would have but neither order allows it.  Perhaps I should have held off on the request for re-induction or for the wiki access so that there’d be no question of my motives.  I wish DS all the best and if I can still contribute from Arete, I’m happy to help.  Creemore, Sophie, Joe, I hope there are no hard feelings and I hope that we will run together soon.